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In the spirit of all German everything aka 2014 World Cup Champs, I thought I’d highlight a particular chunk of Nigeria’s 2013 Infrastructure expenses going to you guessed it…Germany.

In the wake of torrential complaints from the citizenry, the Federal Government has decided to alleviate our sorrows by rehabilitating the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway. The only reason we have the facts behind the contract is because the Presidency has encouraged transparency in some parts of government like the Bureau of Public Procurement (and opacity in others like the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, but I digress).

In case you’re not aware, Nigeria’s infrastructure is in tatters and while countries like China derive 50% of their GDP from investing in their nation, Nigeria just re-based its own to know what actually makes up our Gross Domestic Product. Hence the awarding of the $1bln contract for the reconstruction of the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway to Julius Berger Nigeria (see link: Federal Executive Council Approved Contracts April – September 2013).

Now that I’ve brought you up to speed – pardon the pun – what are people to expect from such a costly investment?

Only time will tell and here’s why I say so- The contract for that road was initially awarded to Barr. Wale Babalakin (SAN), aka very wealthy fellow, but he was unable to deliver on rehabilitating the road…surprise, surprise! Our politicians, incapable of appointing a reliable company to perform cost benefit analysis, waited for the outcry of the public to take any action and perform their specialty: ad-hoc satisfaction of populism.

Granted, Julius Berger is listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and got a ‘little’ bump in their 2013 Revenue – meaning happy shareholders from Nigeria to Geneva. However, this doesn’t change the fact that all we have to rely on in order to assess the opportunity cost of this investment is diatribe and speculation.

We all agree this road should’ve been rehabilitated a long time ago and call it a day; ignorant as we woke up, sleepy with our oblivion. Nope, e no go better….until you act and become a solution.

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